


the special two

by sigarilyo (descartes)



Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-30
Updated: 2009-12-30
Packaged: 2017-10-05 12:50:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/41899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/descartes/pseuds/sigarilyo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>in a way, it started with the break-up. (a david cook/david archuleta fanmix+fic)</p>
            </blockquote>





	the special two

[](http://pics.livejournal.com/sigarilyo/pic/001syrwd)   [](http://pics.livejournal.com/sigarilyo/pic/001szf4a)

1\. **[Missy Higgins - Where I Stood](http://www.box.net/shared/0rl1xdgdcm)**  
_she will love you  
more than i could  
she who dares to stand  
where i stood_

Cook laughed loudly, gave the best hugs in the entire world and had a wide open heart. He loved unashamedly and at the top of his lungs.

This, Archie felt, was the number one reason why he couldn't love Cook.

Cook wouldn't want him to be his dirty little secret, but that was all Archie could ever be.

2\. **[JC Chasez - Dear Goodbye](http://www.box.net/shared/80cxi4d51t)**  
_we used to be so beautiful  
but the days go by and  
things get better_

Sometimes he'll turn his head, the _Hey, David, did you_ poised delicately at the tip of his tongue, only to stop.

There's no one there. No one that mattered, at least.

3\. **[Jason Mraz - You And I Both](http://www.box.net/shared/2f97vu2x0m)**  
_and it's okay if you had to go away  
oh, just remember the telephones  
well, they work in both ways_

The place on your t-shirt where he laid his palm is still warm when you texted him _how's the flight? missing you already haha._

** [4\. K.T. Tunstall - Suddenly I See](http://www.box.net/shared/tyax6bit4j) **   
_suddenly i see  
this is where i want to be_

Epiphanies are inconvenient, especially when you're twenty seconds from going live on camera to promote your upcoming album, and your epiphany concerns a change in your relationship with a young man eight years your junior.

Not for the last time, you thank the years you spent behind a rowdy redneck bar in Tulsa for the stubborn composure that allows you to sit there and smile while your heart threatens to jackhammer out of your chest.

5\. **[Tender Forever - My Love](http://www.box.net/shared/fb7fri38ph)**  
_if i wrote you a symphony  
to say how much you  
mean to me  
what would you do?_

Archie tried, he really did, but for the life of him, he just couldn't write a sad love song that he could secretly dedicate to Cook. Mostly he balanced his guitar on his knees and sang about Cook's dorky jokes that Archie didn't get but still tried to laugh at, after which his dad would comment on his good mood.

_But I'm not happy! I'm sad!_ Archie wanted to wail, but he'd remember another funny Cook thing and smile.

6\. **[Nsync - The Two Of Us](http://www.box.net/shared/t96umi68lh)**  
_'coz in a room full of people  
you're the only one around_

"I'm dating David Archuleta," Cook says with a straight face, and the reporter gamely laughs.

She says, "Got the message loud and clear. Folks, there's no competition between these two Davids."

7\. **[I Nine - If This Room Could Move](http://www.box.net/shared/l4iz2vurub)**  
_what if you and i  
could find our freedom?_

The party was really loud, so Archie wasn't sure if he heard Cook correctly. "Me?"

"Didn't you watch it on E! News?"

"I thought, I mean, what?"

"You're killing me here, Archuleta. After all the calls I made to your dad asking to court you?" and Cook waved at Archie's dad, who waved back.

"My dad?" He didn't know his voice could go that high. "You, you actually asked my dad?"

Cook looked wounded. "It was only polite. I was prepared to offer a dozen cows and seven years of servitude, but he was kind enough to settle for making you happy and not breaking your heart."

Archie peered suspiciously at the half-full glass of Coke he was holding, then at Cook. "But you didn't ask _me_," he said.

"I just did."

"No, you said 'you're dating me now.' That's not a question. There wasn't a question mark at the end of that sentence."

"Well, then." Cook grabbed Archie's hand and led him to a quiet alcove behind a large potted fern. "I'd go on my knees but TMZ might explode," he explained, before lacing their fingers together in the folds of their jacket-sleeves and saying, "I'm not much of a catch, but would you want to date me?"

Archie managed to say, "really?" and "you are so a catch, People magazine said so" and "yes" before Cook was hugging him tight and squeezing all the breath from him.

8\. **[Sandwich - 2 Trick Acoustic](http://www.box.net/shared/d74juh7xs6)**  
_i have been waiting for you all night  
under the glow of the satellite_

Archie had seen Cook perform on stage hundreds of times, but always from backstage, standing at the wings where the audience couldn't see, or watching from a monitor or squinting at Youtube. But Archie had never been in the audience while Cook was performing until now and was completely unprepared when Cook started doing sex type things with his guitar and his leather pants and, oh, oh.

"guy like you should wear a warning," he sang, then shut up because okay, the people in the club around him were, like, serious rockers in black t-shirts and glittering metal chains. They might not recognize him, but Britney Spears was probably a mortal sin.

Onstage, Cook threw his head back, sweat-slick throat gleaming under the spotlight. Cook's hand slid up and down his guitar's neck near-hypnotically.

Suddenly, there was no more music in Archie's head. He didn't notice.

9\. **[The Reindeer Section - You Are My Joy](http://www.box.net/shared/lhlu95pfig)**  
_so don't be scared of   
all the hurtful words  
'cos in the end they'll   
hurt themselves much more_

"but—"

Cook slid his hands into Archie's jeans' back pockets. "My family knows. Your family knows. Our friends know. They're the important ones."

Archie fisted the smooth fabric of Cook's shirt and quietly breathed out.

10\. **[Lily Allen - Who'd Have Known](http://www.box.net/shared/uszj078toy)**  
_you put your arm around my shoulder  
it was as if the room got colder  
we moved closer in together_

You were surprised at how surprised Cook often seemed to be with you. You knew you were a very predictable person, a train in constant motion with a reliable timetable and a fixed line of tracks. Your favorite drink, after all, was still water.

He was the surprising one. You'd be feeling a little trapped by the four walls of your bus, and his tousled head would appear at the door. He'd say, "hey, Archie" in that certain way of his, and you'd laugh, remembering his rolling r's and trademark gesture. He'd play you bits of songs he'd been working on while you did homework and tried to get him to help you with English (he refused to, citing very specific threats from your tutor).

When he'd fall asleep on your couch, you'd sit with his feet in your lap and read until his bodyguards said he had to leave. He'd grin sleepily and thank you for letting him bum around your album tour. You'd touch the circles under his eyes and scold him for stretching himself too thin. He'd cup your face with both hands and coax out a kiss like shivering lines from a newborn song, like years of undiscovered longing.

As you watched him and his guitar case being herded along by large stern men trying to be furtive in a near-empty parking lot, you'd be going through your schedule, anticipating when you'd be the one saying, "hey, Cook."

It wasn't very unpredictable, your reciprocation, but the delight in his eyes when he'd see you made you wish you were that person that he thought you were.

11\. **[The National - Slow Show](http://www.box.net/shared/0td6mhye4h)**  
_you know i dreamed about you  
for twenty-nine years  
before i saw you_

He still had bruises from the last time Archie elbowed him in his sleep. Sure, Archie apologized eight billion times and when he traced the discolored patch on Cook's collarbone, all Cook wanted to do was yank him closer and lick his fingers. Which he eventually did; Archie blushed and called him weird, but he made that surprised-pleased sound in his throat, so Cook grinned and did it again.

Still, even the best "Archie is an abusive boyfriend" jokes couldn't make up for his guitar strap digging mercilessly into the bruise during his set, and at least ten people coming up to him after the show, offering tissues and trying to wipe his tears away.

When Archie stood barefoot at the doorway of Cook's hotel room, Cook remembered the bruises, of waking up the next morning with Archie singing nonsense in his ear and Archie's knee in his stomach (for all his protestations of being ticklish, the kid clung like a limpet when asleep). Cook lifted the covers, moving over to one side of the bed.

They didn't get to sleep together often.

12\. **[The Weepies - Simple Life](http://www.box.net/shared/01sul4oe55)**  
_I want only this  
I want to live_

Sometimes Cook gets this stupid idea that Archie's missing out on a normal life. He'll never go to college. He'll never hold hands with a girl without teen magazines putting hearts around their pictures.

On those days, Archie eats the instant ramen without protest and pretends to not understand why Cook is talking about Archie catching up with the girls back in his hometown. He lets Cook lull him to sleep with stories about outrageous roommates and terrifying professors.

Because Cook hasn't figured out yet that the things that will ensure that Archie will never have a normal life -- Idol, music, stardom -- are the same things that brought him Cook. Archie thinks that it's a good enough sacrifice.

** [download the entire mix (w/ cover art)](http://www.mediafire.com/file/emm2mmnh0cv/) **

**Author's Note:**

> * erratum: lily allen's song is actually called "who'd of known" *is too lazy to fix the art, song and zip file*  
> * the dating comment is an idea borrowed from nsync's chris kirkpatrick, who said on larry king live in 2001, "i'm dating lance [bass]."   
> * textures by , and


End file.
